


Insight

by DoodlesOfTheMind



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fanfic of a fanfic (is that a thing?!), Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 04:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11843886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodlesOfTheMind/pseuds/DoodlesOfTheMind
Summary: So I read this incredible side story (http://archiveofourown.org/works/5457500/chapters/16644454 - Opportunities Keep Giving, Ch. 22 by leathansparrow) with too much caffeine in my system and just HAD to write a quick sequel scene. This version of Iruka makes more sense if you've also read this one (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1055271/chapters/2113144 - Notes from an Undertaker by chuchisushi).Credit for the original stories and the inspiration for this goes to the original authors. Only this follow-up scene is my own.





	Insight

_“Take me to your apartment,” Iruka prompts._

_Itachi, so out of his depth that he is lost for other options, does as he is told._

_He will leave dealing with the realization that he has let a Chunin teacher dictate his life for later, because he cannot currently make sense of any of it._

Itachi sits in the single, battered chair in front of the little folding table he keeps in his kitchen, pinned by Iruka’s half wary, half exasperated order to stay put as the man rifles through his cupboards. Iruka never quite turns his back on him, but there are moments where Itachi thinks his caution seems forced. Oh, his chakra hums with wire-taut tension, but his movements are smooth, free of the nervous jitters Itachi has seen in far too many of Konoha’s younger soldiers since his return to the village. And his hands never come near the twin holsters on his thigh or the nigh-invisible holdout dagger concealed at the small of his back. Never once.

He drops a shade too quickly to open the cabinet under the sink, and Itachi is out of his seat, across the tiny room, one hand on the windowsill.

Iruka rises slowly, gaze steady and not at all afraid. “Sit down, Uchiha.”

Itachi doesn’t react. Can’t. His eyes are locked on the warm brown of the other man’s, skin prickling as he feels Iruka’s chakra settling in the air around him. A sense of calm presses at him from the outside.

“Sit down.” There’s a schoolmasterish edge to his tone now, and Itachi distantly pities Naruto.

Iruka waits, watchful, but he offers no compromise, no apologies, no reassurances, nothing but the order he has already spoken—twice now, and Itachi gets the sense that’s unusual for him outside the classroom. Because he knows now who Umino Iruka has become. He knows where he learned the perfect silence of the battlefield, the adamant steadiness of will and body...the unblinking acceptance of atrocity. His mannerisms are a distorted mirror of another man’s, the same painting done in brighter hues.

Itachi straightens from his half-crouch and takes his hand off the ledge.

Iruka nods in understanding, and Itachi returns the gesture with significantly less. He berates himself for underestimating the other man so thoroughly, for letting something as petty as rank cloud his perceptions when the truth was right in front of him, and simultaneously tries to reconcile two very different sides of the shinobi coin. He finds only minimal commonalities.

“Itachi,” Iruka says softly, and Itachi takes his seat almost absently as he grapples with such an enigma. ANBU and Academy sensei. Killer and shepherd. Itachi imagines himself at the front of a classroom of children, maybe eight, nine years old, holding their trust while driving them onward toward the darkness. The idea repulses him, but the hope of being able to save even one—just one—with the knowledge he could pass on burns his heart like a brand.

Iruka makes him teriyaki salmon, white rice, and a bowl of miso soup, and stares him down until he finishes it. Then he asks for a notebook and makes him a shopping list, demanding that every last item be in Itachi’s fridge or pantry by the end of the week. The unspoken or else reminds Itachi of another overbearing ANBU Captain from so many years ago, and he nearly smiles.

 

~

 

Itachi isn’t one for lawbreaking, and the irony of that thought makes him chuckle under his breath as he slips away from the records hall of the Hokage Tower. The bright moonlight would have been something to fear once, something that glinted off his knives or reflected in his eyes, but tonight it is only gentle comfort as he considers the information he has found. Konoha employs comparatively few Hunter-nin, those tasked with recovering or destroying the bodies of the village’s fallen shinobi before their secrets could land in enemy hands. Most were also qualified field medics, but that was more of a formality. It made it easier to tell when a target was beyond hope. When the most practical option was to end their life before time could do it for them.

Owl had served among their ranks for most of a decade and counting, though half that had been on the secondary reserve list. His primary duties since his reassignment were to teach and defend the children of the clans, the special cases, the jinchuuriki child.

And woe betide the fool who threatened the kids under his protection. For a sensor, the man was reportedly lethal with a short sword.

He feels almost guilty for digging into Iruka’s history the way he has for the last several hours. Contempt for the abysmal levels of security around such an essential trove of information follows hard on the heels of that emotion, only to be squelched by sheer annoyance.

He turns on the ball of his foot to face Hatake Kakashi, hands in his pockets and one-eyed gaze assessing him. “You let me in.”

“Hm? In where?” Kakashi asks breezily. He still doesn’t show his hands, and Itachi tenses slightly.

“Why?” Itachi asks him. He’s spent enough time around Obito’s playacting to develop some patience with it. And it still surprises him just how much Hound-taichou has changed from the relentless, powerful commander he knew as a boy. Kakashi’s relaxed confidence was one of many new things Itachi had noted upon his return to the village. He wears the Hokage’s mantle well, and his young team’s Will of Fire seems of have melted some of the coldness from him over the years.

“Path of least resistance,” Kakashi replies.

A rare flash of insight strikes Itachi then. He blinks twice. Then he abruptly turns and walks away.

Hatake Kakashi...and Umino Iruka.

It didn’t bear thinking about.

And neither did the unsubtle threat his former Captain had offered him.


End file.
